Strandia

Rating:
Summary: 'Strandia' a great book of fantasy for teens
Review: (...)
Strandia is a mythical island where it is ruled by the raeth, women who can communicate with the "dorado" or dolphins. It is written by Susan Lynn Reynolds an amateur writer. Sand, a gifted raeth women, refuses to marry a man chosen for her by her mother. After she is banished she builds a life of freedom and fulfillment not far from her previous home. Ms. Reynolds wrote the book with the idea of fabricating an enchanted land of mystery as you read, and she accomplished her goal in my case. The book was full of twists and turns that forced you to keep reading, almost as if you where trapped on the island yourself.
Sand ends up living in three different places throughout the book. First, of coarse her home as a raeth, with her family and her own private beach. After that didn't last long, she moved to Midisle which consisted of no raeth all the "normal" people. While the summer lasted she lived literally on a rock in the beach. Her days consisted of swimming with M'ridan, a dolphin that had grown to be a good friend of hers and playing with a little girl by the name of Monarri. With winter approaching, a storm comes and delirious Sand is found by three Midisle men. She is taken it by a kind lady named Jinny. Sand lived with Jinny and her son for some time. After Sand really fit in and was developing a relationship with a man, Berran, the raeth priest found her. They charged her with the crime of pretense and she was sent in a little boat out to the middle of the sea to be judged by "The Mother". The mother to them is like god is to us. After she drifted miles from Strandia, she attempted to call M'ridan to save her. He brought her to some nearby continent. After the native men from that land discovered her they attempted to speak to her but they realized they were speaking in different languages. She lived there with Renellus, a doctor, and Lucius a stargazer. After she starts to adjust to them, Lucius discovers that a tidal wave governed by a comet's rare appearance will soon come along with terrible floods and earthquakes and they need to get to deep water in the next couple weeks. Sand, realizing that Strandia is a very flat island, travels back to Strandia with the help of M'ridan to warn her people. She is reunited with all her old friends and family. Many raeth didn't go along with the whole theory of the floods coming. When it came, they all left to the boats and the unbelievers were left to drown. The only misfortune for Sand was her dear M'ridan was beached and hurt badly. M'ridan's pod came and took him, leaving Sand to not know if he would survive or not. They started to rebuild they're lives on what was left of Strandia and the men on the boat from the continent returned to their homes as well.
Overall, Strandia, was very entertaining with a couple uneven parts. Susan Reynolds did a great job of painting that picture of a far off fantasy land in your head. The story was a little slow to start but it demands much attentiveness just to understand Strandia, its myths, and its inhabitants. The story was just so unique and not like anything I have read before. Some of the best scenes in the book were striking like Madeleine L'Engle's, A Ring of Endless Light. Nevertheless, the authors unfailing respect for the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity really came out in her writing. Readers also might question when Sand chooses a relationship with her dolphin rather than one with a man. On page 275, Berran asks if she would pretty much move in with him and her reply is, "The answer is no." I would have much rather preferred an ending with Sand and Berran living happily ever after. With a little more experience, this being her first book, she is capable of writing some very high-quality material.
Ms. Reynolds made many situations that I and many other teens can relate to. Sand was constantly disobeying her parents like many teens do or want to do. Although most don't pursue the urge to go against your parents wishes, that's why this book is such a great escape from the reality of how most would handle the situation. When my parents tell me to do something, I do it! As Sand rebelliously goes against her parents wishes, she fulfills what many other teenage girls won't do.
I have found that after reading many of the adventure books out there, they all seemed to sound the same after time. Well if you're a young teen searching for an escape from all those boring adventures you have read in the past, Strandia is for you. I recommend this book to be read by pre-teens and teens 12 and up because there are many things that the younger crowds wouldn't understand or appreciate as much.

Rating:
Summary: 'Strandia' a great book of fantasy for teens
Review: (...)
Strandia is a mythical island where it is ruled by the raeth, women who can communicate with the "dorado" or dolphins. It is written by Susan Lynn Reynolds an amateur writer. Sand, a gifted raeth women, refuses to marry a man chosen for her by her mother. After she is banished she builds a life of freedom and fulfillment not far from her previous home. Ms. Reynolds wrote the book with the idea of fabricating an enchanted land of mystery as you read, and she accomplished her goal in my case. The book was full of twists and turns that forced you to keep reading, almost as if you where trapped on the island yourself.
Sand ends up living in three different places throughout the book. First, of coarse her home as a raeth, with her family and her own private beach. After that didn't last long, she moved to Midisle which consisted of no raeth all the "normal" people. While the summer lasted she lived literally on a rock in the beach. Her days consisted of swimming with M'ridan, a dolphin that had grown to be a good friend of hers and playing with a little girl by the name of Monarri. With winter approaching, a storm comes and delirious Sand is found by three Midisle men. She is taken it by a kind lady named Jinny. Sand lived with Jinny and her son for some time. After Sand really fit in and was developing a relationship with a man, Berran, the raeth priest found her. They charged her with the crime of pretense and she was sent in a little boat out to the middle of the sea to be judged by "The Mother". The mother to them is like god is to us. After she drifted miles from Strandia, she attempted to call M'ridan to save her. He brought her to some nearby continent. After the native men from that land discovered her they attempted to speak to her but they realized they were speaking in different languages. She lived there with Renellus, a doctor, and Lucius a stargazer. After she starts to adjust to them, Lucius discovers that a tidal wave governed by a comet's rare appearance will soon come along with terrible floods and earthquakes and they need to get to deep water in the next couple weeks. Sand, realizing that Strandia is a very flat island, travels back to Strandia with the help of M'ridan to warn her people. She is reunited with all her old friends and family. Many raeth didn't go along with the whole theory of the floods coming. When it came, they all left to the boats and the unbelievers were left to drown. The only misfortune for Sand was her dear M'ridan was beached and hurt badly. M'ridan's pod came and took him, leaving Sand to not know if he would survive or not. They started to rebuild they're lives on what was left of Strandia and the men on the boat from the continent returned to their homes as well.
Overall, Strandia, was very entertaining with a couple uneven parts. Susan Reynolds did a great job of painting that picture of a far off fantasy land in your head. The story was a little slow to start but it demands much attentiveness just to understand Strandia, its myths, and its inhabitants. The story was just so unique and not like anything I have read before. Some of the best scenes in the book were striking like Madeleine L'Engle's, A Ring of Endless Light. Nevertheless, the authors unfailing respect for the strength of the human spirit in the face of adversity really came out in her writing. Readers also might question when Sand chooses a relationship with her dolphin rather than one with a man. On page 275, Berran asks if she would pretty much move in with him and her reply is, "The answer is no." I would have much rather preferred an ending with Sand and Berran living happily ever after. With a little more experience, this being her first book, she is capable of writing some very high-quality material.
Ms. Reynolds made many situations that I and many other teens can relate to. Sand was constantly disobeying her parents like many teens do or want to do. Although most don't pursue the urge to go against your parents wishes, that's why this book is such a great escape from the reality of how most would handle the situation. When my parents tell me to do something, I do it! As Sand rebelliously goes against her parents wishes, she fulfills what many other teenage girls won't do.
I have found that after reading many of the adventure books out there, they all seemed to sound the same after time. Well if you're a young teen searching for an escape from all those boring adventures you have read in the past, Strandia is for you. I recommend this book to be read by pre-teens and teens 12 and up because there are many things that the younger crowds wouldn't understand or appreciate as much.

Rating:
Summary: Fantasy at its very best
Review: IMO, Susan Lynn Reynolds is head and shoulders above popular Young Adult fantasy writers like Tamora Pierce, Vivian Vande Velde, and especially Gail Carson Levine. I recently read Levine's book ELLA ENCHANTED, and liked it far less than I'd anticipated, given all the rave reviews it's received. It was an entertaining enough retelling of the Cinderella story, but I was disappointed by the stereotypical portrayal of the Wicked Stepsisters (wasn't it enough for them to be nasty? Did they have to be repulsively ugly dunces as well?), the thoroughly traditional ending (instead of getting married right away, when Ella was still so young, why couldn't she and the Prince just have been friends for a few more years?), and Levine's cutesy psuedo-mediaeval fantasy world, which was like something out of a Disney cartoon. ELLA ENCHANTED isn't a book I'll want to read again; my copy is going straight to the secondhand bookstore.

On the other hand, I've had my copy of STRANDIA for years, and reread it regularly. The world created by Reynolds is a refreshing change from the usual quasi-mediaeval setting of knights, mages, elves, princesses, castles, et cetera. The society on the island of Strandia has its own unique social structure--and accompanying social tensions--customs, religion, and myths. The more advanced civilisation on the distant mainland, while described in less detail, provides an interesting contrast. The story has a lot of what have become rather cliched and formulaic fantasy scenarios--young hero can communicate with animals (in this case, dolphins), has extraordinary powers which she tests to their limits but also becomes adept at more down-to-earth skills (cloth-making, herblore, sailing) under the guidance of wise mentors, is ultimately called upon to save her homeland, etc. However, Reynolds makes these scenarios seem new and fresh, yet at the same time, deeply resonant, because of her original, fully realized world and her strong characterizations. While possessing all the traits of the typical fantasy hero, the protagonist, Sand, is a fully fleshed-out character with many distinctive characteristics of her own. Her doraado (dolpin) friend M'ridan has a believable personality that never strays to the cloyingly anthropomorphic. All the other characters, right down to the minor ones, are very well drawn; even the less than sympathetic characters, such as Sand's vengeful rejected suitor, her hidebound mother, and a fanatical priest of the sea goddess, rather than just being two-dimensional villains, are shown to be products of their strictly-ordered society.

Virtually my only problem with the book is that there are two inconsistencies: the Midisle woman Jaunta has long hair, even though Reynolds wrote earlier that only raeth women grew their hair long, and another character's footwear switched from sandals to boots in the same scene.

Reynolds only seems to have written this one book, which is a real pity. I wish she were as prolific as Tamora Pierce and Vivian Vande Velde.

Rating:
Summary: Fantasy at its very best
Review: IMO, Susan Lynn Reynolds is head and shoulders above popular Young Adult fantasy writers like Tamora Pierce, Vivian Vande Velde, and especially Gail Carson Levine. I recently read Levine's book ELLA ENCHANTED, and liked it far less than I'd anticipated, given all the rave reviews it's received. It was an entertaining enough retelling of the Cinderella story, but I was disappointed by the stereotypical portrayal of the Wicked Stepsisters (wasn't it enough for them to be nasty? Did they have to be repulsively ugly dunces as well?), the thoroughly traditional ending (instead of getting married right away, when Ella was still so young, why couldn't she and the Prince just have been friends for a few more years?), and Levine's cutesy psuedo-mediaeval fantasy world, which was like something out of a Disney cartoon. ELLA ENCHANTED isn't a book I'll want to read again; my copy is going straight to the secondhand bookstore.

On the other hand, I've had my copy of STRANDIA for years, and reread it regularly. The world created by Reynolds is a refreshing change from the usual quasi-mediaeval setting of knights, mages, elves, princesses, castles, et cetera. The society on the island of Strandia has its own unique social structure--and accompanying social tensions--customs, religion, and myths. The more advanced civilisation on the distant mainland, while described in less detail, provides an interesting contrast. The story has a lot of what have become rather cliched and formulaic fantasy scenarios--young hero can communicate with animals (in this case, dolphins), has extraordinary powers which she tests to their limits but also becomes adept at more down-to-earth skills (cloth-making, herblore, sailing) under the guidance of wise mentors, is ultimately called upon to save her homeland, etc. However, Reynolds makes these scenarios seem new and fresh, yet at the same time, deeply resonant, because of her original, fully realized world and her strong characterizations. While possessing all the traits of the typical fantasy hero, the protagonist, Sand, is a fully fleshed-out character with many distinctive characteristics of her own. Her doraado (dolpin) friend M'ridan has a believable personality that never strays to the cloyingly anthropomorphic. All the other characters, right down to the minor ones, are very well drawn; even the less than sympathetic characters, such as Sand's vengeful rejected suitor, her hidebound mother, and a fanatical priest of the sea goddess, rather than just being two-dimensional villains, are shown to be products of their strictly-ordered society.

Virtually my only problem with the book is that there are two inconsistencies: the Midisle woman Jaunta has long hair, even though Reynolds wrote earlier that only raeth women grew their hair long, and another character's footwear switched from sandals to boots in the same scene.

Reynolds only seems to have written this one book, which is a real pity. I wish she were as prolific as Tamora Pierce and Vivian Vande Velde.